Monday, August 23, 2010

Another Gator?

For years Sararose Krenger and her family joked that alligators lived near their Ravenswood Gardens' home which is along the Chicago River.

Today, Krenger, 22, and her family were on their boat traveling on the river when their joke became a reality. They spotted a three-to-five-foot alligator basking in the sun along the bank of the North Branch of the Chicago River just north of Belmont Avenue.

We do recall a sizable number of piranhas being part of a "lagoon stocking project" back in the early 1970's on the west and north sides. Some of our older readers may remember the characters involved. Unfortunately, the brutal Chicago winters decimated the tropical predators. Still, one can always hope that either evolution produces a hardier alligator or global warming expands the habitat range of man-eating reptiles and fish.

Three of the alleged victims have remained free, but Patterson is serving a 30-year prison term on gun and drug charges.

In one of the strange twists in Patterson's civil case, a judge allowed Wallace "Gator" Bradley, a former gang enforcer, to sit in court with Patterson's attorney as an "urban translator" to control the volatile defendant. Now Bradley says Patterson's attorney, Frank Avila, owes him $250,000 for his work. Avila and Flint Taylor, Patterson's former lawyer, are fighting over their share of the legal fees.

Wait....back it up a sec...someone deliberately stocked local waters with PIRANHAS?

A: Any biologist worth his or her degree (like, oh, ME, for instance) could have told them that even a mild winter would kill them off.

B: If the momos thought that they could actually survive and breed, what the HELL were they hoping to accomplish? Have Asian Tiger beetles, gypsy moths, zebra mussels, death-carp. kudzu and killer bees taught us nothing?